Does “One Cannot Know” Entail “Everyone is Right?” The Relationship between Epistemic Scepticism and Relativism

• Authors: Majid Amini , Christopher Caldwell
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The objective of the paper is to seek clarification on the relationship between epistemic relativism and scepticism. It is not infrequent to come across contemporary discussions of epistemic relativism that rely upon aspects of scepticism and, vice versa, discussions of scepticism drawing upon aspects of relativism. Our goal is to highlight the difference(s) between them by illustrating (1) that some arguments thought to be against relativism are actually against scepticism, (2) that there are different ways of understanding the relationship between relativism and scepticism, and (3) that a commitment to either relativism or scepticism does not entail commitment to the other. The paper focuses upon the works of Peter Unger and Paul Boghossian to show how this terrain can be variously conceived and to illustrate that Boghossian's conception of the landscape is incorrect.

Keywords

EN

Epistemics; Relativity; Skepticism; Unger, Peter; Boghossian, Paul

• Publisher: Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie
• Journal: Forum Philosophicum
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 103-118

Dates

published

2010

Contributors

author

Majid Amini

• Virginia State University
• Virginia State University

author

Christopher Caldwell

References

• Boghossian, Paul Artin. Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006.
• Burnyeat, M. F. “Can the Sceptic Live his Scepticism?” In Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology, edited by Malcolm Schofield, Myles Burnyeat, and Jonathan Barnes, 20–53. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
• Feyerabend, Paul. Farewell to Reason. London: Verso, 1987.
• Fumerton, Richard A. Metaepistemology and Skepticism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995.
• Harré, Rom, and Michael Krausz. Varieties of Relativism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
• Scanlon, Thomas M. What We Owe To Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
• Sedley, David. “The Protagonists.” In Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology, edited by Malcolm Schofield, Myles Burnyeat, and Jonathan Barnes, 1–19. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
• Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Translated by Robert Gregg Bury. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933.
• Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Scepticism. Translated by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
• Unger, Peter, K. Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.
• Unger, Peter K. Philosophical Relativity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Identifiers

DOI

10.5840/forphil201015120

URI

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=53739336&lang=pl&site=ehost-live

URI

http://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=forphil&id=forphil_2010_0015_0001_0103_0118